Renzi jubilant as House approves Constitutional reform bill

Package now returns to Senate

(ANSA) - Rome, January 11 - Premier Matteo Renzi was
jubilant after his government's flagship bill to change the
Constitution in order to overhaul Italy's slow, costly political
machinery was approved by the Lower House on Monday.
The bill returns to the Senate after being approved with
367 votes in favour, 194 against and five abstentions.
The package includes the controversial transformation of
the Senate into a leaner assembly of 100 local-government
representatives with limited powers to save money and make
passing legislation easier.
Renzi has staked his political standing on getting the
bill approved and has said a referendum will be held in the
autumn to ratify the package once it is definitively approved.
"Today was the fourth vote on the Constitutional reforms,"
Renzi said on his Facebook page.
"A crushing majority while we wait to know how the public
will vote in the autumn.
"We are showing that nothing is impossible in Italy. Full
steam ahead with confidence and courage".
Also on Monday, the co-chair of an anti-reform committee in
parliament said enough lawmakers are on board to request a
separate referendum scrapping the package.
"We have the certainty that at least 126 MPs will ask for
the referendum" to strike down Renzi's Constitutional reforms,
said MP Alfiero Grandi.
The anti-reform committee was officially launched earlier
in the day to prevent "2016 from becoming the year of the end of
the Republic born 70 years ago," its supporters said.
The anti-reform referendum is being promoted by Italian
Left (SI) - a splinter from Renzi's Democratic party - and the
anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S).